Two years ago, Noah Thomas’ (13-4 MMA, 0-0 WEC) MMA career appeared just about over.

After taking part in “the most technical streetfight in history” with Marlon Sims while filming “The Ultimate Fighter 5,” Thomas was banished from the UFC and appeared to be forever blacklisted from the sport’s biggest organization.

Then things got worse.

“Dana White made the right call,” Thomas recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “I messed up. I should have been more professional when Marlon did what he did, but it didn’t go down like that.”

Left to find a new path, Thomas then suffered a devastating knee injury.

“I was working out with a fairly inexperienced guy,” Thomas said. “It’s kind of my fault as much as his. I don’t want to put any blame on it.

“The guy just didn’t like to get hit, and he’s a better wrestler than me. … I was getting ready for a fight, and I caught him with a stiff jab. He dove in after my leg. I stuffed him, and he continued the shot and blew my knee out. It was quite possibly the most painful thing I’ve ever had happen in my life.”

But rather than head straight to the doctor for an examination, Thomas felt it was simply another minor setback that was testing his resolve as a fighter.

“I thought I was just being a wuss at the time, so I trained four more months with [my knee] blown out completely until I was sparring with a training partner and it would keep popping out,” Thomas said. “I was like, ‘OK, something’s got to be wrong here because I’m losing total mobility and all stability. I’m falling, and it’s the most excruciating pain every time it pops out.’

“So I went in, and they told me I had a severed ACL. We fixed it, and then after about an eight-month period of rehab and all sorts of stuff like that, we got back in the cage.”

But the trials weren’t yet over. Thomas was forced to train while maintaining a full-time job, taking away from his time in the gym. Then came a broken hand. Then the passing of his father.

But Thomas never lost focus on his goal, and a current seven-fight win streak led him not to the WEC, but the upstart Bellator Fighting Championships.
Thomas was preparing to fight on the ESPN-Deportes-broadcast organization when the call he had been waiting on, yearning for, came just in time.

“Bellator’s great,” Thomas. “They’ve done some really, really good things so far. But ultimately, the thing was I wanted to get to the WEC. That’s where I wanted to end up.
Ultimately, that was my goal at the beginning of my entire comeback.”

Gomez will be looking to bounce back from the first defeat of his MMA career, ironically for the aforementioned Bellator organization, and Thomas knows the Greg Jackson product will provide a difficult challenge, but a manageable one.

“[Gomez] is a tough guy,” Thomas said. “He comes prepared. But he’s been preparing for a standup fighter for the last however long. Now he has to contend with a mutual wrestler and a jiu-jitsu guy.”

But it wouldn’t have mattered who the opponent was. For Thomas, Sunday night’s bout is a chance to prove to White, to the WEC, to Zuffa, LLC, that he learned his lessons and belongs in the sport.

“It’s going to a very tough fight,” Thomas said. “I feel he brings some good things to the table, some puzzles I’ve got to solve.

“But hopefully, God willing, I’m going to come away with the ‘W.'”

For complete coverage of WEC 41, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.

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